If you want to travel between San Francisco and the nearby town of Sausalito you can certainly drive. Many people do. But traffic is miserable and parking at either end is frustrating. Fortunately, it’s entirely possible to ride a bicycle over the Golden Gate Bridge. An entire ecosystem of small companies has sprung up to … Continue reading The Infrastructure Cult
Santa Rosa Junior College is installing another parking lot near campus. No big deal, right? This is a commuter school serving people from all corners of the county. Faculty and students need places to park. This parking lot is carefully designed to meet all sorts of requirements. There’s comprehensive handicap accessibility. Thoughtful landscaping will include … Continue reading Transactions of Decline
Google Google . Here’s an intersection in unincorporated Sonoma County about an hour and a half north of San Francisco. It’s not exactly urban. But it’s a little too developed to be truly rural. Yet there’s enough productive farm land that it isn’t entirely suburban either. It’s a mixed bag. . . . These vacant … Continue reading “Economic Development”
Our current national conversation pits suburbia against the urban core. Big box stores against Main Street. Cars against transit. Single family homes against apartments. This is a false choice. The way things play out over time might surprise everyone – including me. So I want to look to the past to get a vague outline of … Continue reading History Doesn’t Necessarily Repeat, But It Rhymes
Here are some photos of the HopMonk Tavern in Novato, California in the Wine County just north of San Francisco. The food here is great. The atmosphere is terrific. When you’re inside the building or out on the enclosed patio it’s exactly what you’d want or expect from this part of the world. But let’s … Continue reading A Rural Paradise in the Bulk Warehouse Aisle
There’s currently a lot of talk about why so many towns, counties, and states are going broke. “Teachers are getting paid way too much.” “Cops and fire fighters have extravagant pensions.” “It’s waste, fraud, and abuse.” “It’s welfare queens.” “It’s immigrants.” “It’s the Democrats.” “It’s the Republicans.” But here’s the truth. Even if you fired … Continue reading Municipal Solvency: How to Not Go Broke
Google My last post was about how Silicon Valley is evolving into an urban form that’s not quite leafy and open enough to be a suburb anymore, but not really vibrant and compact enough to be a proper city either. “Too thin to be jelly. Too thick to be jam.” The story got an unusually … Continue reading Silicon Valley: Jelly in the Jam
I tend to explore what happens to suburbs as they age and begin to decline. But this time I’m going to explore what happens to suburbs that thrive and continue to grow and work their way up the value chain. It isn’t exactly what many people expect. “Be careful what you wish for.” A … Continue reading Growth and the Suburban Chassis
I have an on-going correspondence with a particular city planner who recently asked, “What pushes a neighborhood down vs. what lifts it up?” In the end I suspect this is going to be like the old joke. Ask three rabbis a question and you’ll get five answers. Perhaps I should provide a few examples of popular … Continue reading The Urban Planner’s Dilemma
I’m a longtime advocate of walkable, mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-served neighborhoods. But lately I’ve been having impure thoughts about suburbia. Let me explain. What often passes for a neighborhood in America is a low grade assemblage of chain convenience stores, big box outlets, franchise muffler shops, multi-lane highways, and isolated cul-de-sacs. Even when it’s physically … Continue reading Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Sprawl (Sort of)
Granola Shotgun 